The appointment of Gary Johns last week as director of the regulator, the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), has created incredulous disbelief and concern amongst NGO leaders. For decades, Johns has been proactive in criticising the public advocacy of NGOs and even their very existence.

A bill expected to be introduced by the Government this week, may deliberately create confusion by linking foreign donations to political parties, with foreign donations to civil society organisations. It is expected to propose banning both.

Australian civil society has seen the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) win the Nobel Peace Prize, the High Court uphold Bob Brown’s challenge to Tasmanian protest laws, and the Coalition extend its attacks on NGO advocacy, targeting GetUp.

Coalition Governments have been trying to stop NGO advocacy for 20 years. Current attacks on the sector are a clash between a neoliberal old world order dominated by fossil fuels and a world view based on sustainability and equity

This paper examines current changes within the Australian environment movement to project where the movement might be trending in coming years. It references the movement’s past history to describe why it lost its way around the turn of the century. However, it paints a more positive picture of current trends, especially community organising, and co-operative relationships between groups. The renewal is sourced to (a) new climate change groups that have benefited from US influence; and (b) the strength of domestic groups that cut across traditional political lines, such as the very successful Lock the Gate organisation.

This article itemises attacks on environmental NGOs by representatives of the Abbott government, the Minerals Council and others. It defends the democratic role of these NGOs in developing public policy.

Delivered immediately after the 2013 election that returned the Abbott Coalition government, this paper suggests some possible policy directions that may emerge in the light of experience with the previous Coalition Government and also statements by Tony Abbott prior to the election.

Staples, J. 2012, Non-government organisations and the Australian government: a dual strategy of public advocacy for NGOs , PhD Research thesis, UNSW. Click here for PDF.

This thesis examines the relationship of the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Wilderness Society with the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments. It draws conclusions about the way NGOs can conduct effective advocacy and points to strategic positioning of NGOs that will produce long-term democratic outcomes.

This chapter focuses on the strategic positioning of NGOs in relation to government and in particular the important role NGOs fulfil in a pluralist democracy. It traces the recent and often fraught history of environmental NGOs in Australia in order to show how they can move on to more effective advocacy.

This chapter reviews the campaign by the NGO, AidWatch, that led to the High Court decision in 2010 affirming AidWatch was not disqualified from charitable status by its public advocacy. It places the significance of the decision within the history of attempts to silence NGO advocacy in Australia, and commends the way AidWatch conducted their campaign.

Staples, J. 2009, ‘Australian Government Action in the 1980s’, in Sykes, H. (ed), Climate Change on for Young and Old, Future Leaders, Melbourne. Click here for PDF.

This chapter attempts to show how the importance of climate change was recognised by government in the 1980s. It describes how action was not limited to the Labor Party under Hawke, but that the Liberal Party’s policy under Puplick was just as strong, if not more so.

This chapter reviews the environmental legacy of the Hawke government, which was a remarkable period in Australia’s environmental history. It concludes that previous assessments of the Hawke government have given insufficient attention to the fact it was returned to power in 1990 with the assistance of environmental NGOs, that the same NGOs contributed significantly to the ALP record win in 1983 and also helped improve the ALP position at the 1987 election. However, for environmental NGOs such endorsement of the ALP was not sustainable as an advocacy strategy.

Staples, J. 2008, ‘Attacks on NGO “accountability”: Questions of governance or the logic of public choice theory?’, in J. Barraket (ed.), Strategic Issues for the Not-for-profit Sector, UNSW Press, Sydney.

This chapter unpacks the theoretical underpinning of attacks on NGOs’ ‘accountability’ and attempts to show that these attacks are often motivated by a view of NGOs that does not accept their democratic role as public advocates.

This article reviews the health of the NGO sector prior to the 2007 election following attacks on NGO advocacy by the Howard Government. By reviewing Labor Party speeches prior to the election it claims that the ALP values NGOs for their economic-productivity value rather than any social-democratic role.